


Ruminations on Sleep

by ChaosMidge (NotQuiteInsane)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Insomnia, Magic, Spoilers for Damascus Arc (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteInsane/pseuds/ChaosMidge
Summary: "He has always been a top tier agent."Wilde ruminates on the effects of sleep deprivation. Set pre-Rome.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 28





	Ruminations on Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheAllKnowingOwl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAllKnowingOwl/gifts).



> Had this idea in my head for a while and a sprint in Rome made me actually write it. No beta, all mistakes are my own.

Nights in Damascus are hot. They're hot and humid and dusty and while that might be an artifact of sleeping outside in a tent in the middle of nowhere, Wilde cannot find it in him to enjoy it at all. There's never been a reason for him to get used to sleeping outside in any circumstance. He much prefers the comforts of a feather bed under a solid roof, preferably with four walls, a bar, and a nice desk.

That is where he does his best work.

And he does his best work when he can sleep.

It's been a long while since he's gotten anything other than snatches of sleep.

It... hurts. In a way that he can't quite describe. Despite the plethora of words that come to mind in any other situation for any other description, the fuzziness in his brain when it comes to how much consciousness _hurts_ is...

It's unfamiliar. Indescribable.

And to a man who thrives in knowing the intricate workings of everything around him, the unfamiliar and unknowable are two things that should never coincide.

And it hurts.

He stares up at the roof of the tent and listens.

In theory, he should be able to hear _something_. Grizzop pacing the perimeter, frenetic energy never-ending. Or Azu's snores, curled as she is around Hamid. He will never hear Sasha. He knows that well.

He admires that about her.

He knows and admires a lot of things about her and he will never say them aloud.

And so he stares up at the roof of his tent.

And, completely and utterly unable to sleep, it hurts.

Wilde thinks that he could deal with the lack of sleep. This region of the world makes delicious, highly caffeinated coffee. He could guzzle it all day and hide the effects with illusions that he weaves with a snap of his fingers and he could—

He has always been a top tier agent.

Ever since his first forays into the Great Game, he has been good at it. He has a knack for noticing and remembering the small details, the little things that tell so much about a person that certain parties have accused him of being psychic—dabbling in magics he has no right to use against unwitting opponents.

But it's all a game and it's one that Wilde plays to win.

It _hurts_ that he has been losing so badly of late.

The sleepless weeks have dulled the carefully honed blade of wit that he has always wielded. It's left him weaponless. Powerless. Defenseless.

Weak.

He hides the weakness with sharp clothes and illusion and a rapier sharp smile. Anyone who gets too close is cut.

No one can get close enough to know that the rapier is just another illusion.

Coffee. Turkish coffee and cocaine when he can get it. An import. An expensive one.

He has always been a top tier agent. And with any luck, no one will ever know him as anything else.

The worst part about the lack of sleep is the loss of access to his magic.

Sometimes Wilde hums to himself without thinking.

Every single time, he's startled when the fizzing glitter of illusion and enchantment doesn't well up in his chest. It's always been as natural as breathing to him. As natural as sleeping—

But he doesn't do that anymore. So it figures that he would lose access to the full majesty of his Song, too. Of the syllables woven together tight as the most lavish cloth. To stories made of the shifting weft and warp of the world around him. By the power in his voice and his heart and his _belief_.

Very rarely anymore does the idle humming—a tick that he's almost ashamed to have developed, he's always been so _controlled_ , gods damn it—turn to singing. Once upon a time he would have turned tiny snatches of tune into a symphony of forest and ocean and sweeping galaxies within the safety of his office. They were private things, imaginings that made his heart soar with the notes and subtle trills of his vocal cords. And now they're more private, he supposes. They're only ever within the boundaries of his imagination anymore.

That will have to be enough belief for the time being.

Wilde remembers, sometimes, the first time he ever used his Song.

It had been as much a surprise as the first time as a lover had come for him, _because_ of him.

A small folk tune, lilting Irish Gaelic, and a memory of home. A memory of his mother and his sister and a good day. As his tongue moved over the familiar cadence, the sweet notes, colors had burst in the air around him like sparks of fire from the hearth. They had spun and danced for him, reacting to the way his voice hitched and stuttered, to the way he latched back onto the song and conducted them like a maestro in full confidence.

He had woven his first illusion that day. He had seen his sister and his mother again.

But not anymore.

And it hurts.

Grizzop, of all people, comments on his slipups. Wilde didn't think that the goblin would have paid him close enough attention to catch the hint of Irish brogue in his vowels, to catch the overly enunciated consonants that lace his speech of late. But his ears twitch and his eyes swivel to the man and he puts a hand on his hip.

"You alright there, mate?"

Wilde looks down his nose at the goblin, straightening his back to make the difference between them clearer than ever. The smile on his lips is shark-toothed. "As alright as the day you were born, Mr. drik acht Amsterdam." The words are flawless RP, sharpened, aimed, and loosed as sure as any Artemesian arrow.

Grizzop scowls and looks away from him, ears twitching in consternation. "Roight, fuck off then. Just checking in on your wellbeing."

As the goblin exits Wilde's office, he ruminates on the tone of his last words. Wilde has a very good ear for tone. His own words should have elicited a hostile response, righteous indignation or offence, but instead he'd heard... concern.

For a goblin—no, for a _paladin_ —who is often more venomous with regards to his presence than cordial, concern is right out.

He can't work out any possible reason and that bothers him. It is an unfathomable mystery, a gordian knot of complicated interpersonal interactions that he just isn't sharp enough to cut through anymore. The frustration of it is enough to have his fingers tightening around the fountain pen poised over one of an endless stream of reports. He tries to relax them and drops the pen instead.

His hand is shaking too badly.

A headache is throbbing through his skull.

He's tired.

He takes a long draught of coffee and lets it work its magic.

Because gods know that he can't do the magic himself.

After Damascus, after the administration of the anti-magic cuffs and the discovered advantage of being able to _sleep_... Wilde has a difficult decision.

He weighs the cuffs in his hand, feels the uncanny gravity around them. They pull at him, at the magic that he has only just recovered after a week of rest and recuperation at the hospitality of the Damascus Meritocratic Offices. It's the best he's felt in months and he puts the cuffs back down for a moment. Just long enough to whistle an ascending trill. Multicolored sparks of green and pink and silver and purple swirl above his outstretched hand in a rising spiral of Song and his face breaks into a smile and—

The cuffs glint dully on the table, their adamantine patterning breaking the fluidity of his music and cracking the illusion down the middle.

Wilde sits back in his chair and lets his head fall into his hands. He lets himself mourn.

He lets himself hurt.

In the end, Wilde puts the cuffs on.

How can he not?

He has always been a top tier agent.

And he's going to need that edge in the days to come.

He just wishes it didn't come at the cost of his Song.


End file.
